Eating For Cancer: Shefaly Ravula On Anti-Inflammatory Foods and Therapeutic Diets For Cancer Patients
Speaker 1:
Welcome back to the armor men’s health hour with dr. Mystery and Donna Lee . Hello and welcome to the armor men’s health. I’m dr. Mr . Your host here with my bubbly effervescent wonderfully. Can’t do without a bolt office manager.
Speaker 2:
That’s me. Hello. Hello. So effervescence . Hello. Everyone’s lovely.
Speaker 1:
Many thanks to KLBJ news radio and all of our wonderful staff here for helping us put on this show. This is a men’s health show. I’m a board certified urologist and a , that is a doctor or a surgeon who treats , uh , genital urinary conditions of the prostate kidney, kidney stones, low testosterone, hormones, wellness. We do so much great stuff here, right? Donna [inaudible] . And so , um , one of the big reasons that we’ve decided to bring this show to the community is to really highlight a different way of thinking about your health, thinking about how even a surgeon and, you know, maybe in the community, you may not know, but in the medical profession, the internal medicine doctors are considered the smart ones who are just, you know, more honest about, and the surgeons are just cutters, you know? Right. But as a urologist, I get to thread that needle because I’m, you know, do both, both the genius and ,
Speaker 2:
And I got her and cut it and get to cut people. And that’s not a teenage dysfunction thing that is an actual surgeon.
Speaker 1:
Uh, one of the great things about our practice is how incredibly diverse it is. And I think that you would rarely find as intensive a nutrition program in a medical practice, forget about just a surgical practice. And what we really strive to achieve is a whole body approach to different , uh , medical conditions. And today we are joined by , uh , Shefali Roula . She is a physician assistant and she is our functional nutrition provider here at our practice. And thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2:
Thank you for having me. I’m super excited and slightly nervous.
Speaker 1:
Well, no reason, no reason to be nervous. Shefali is a humongous addition to our practice. Not only is she a food writer for the Austin American statesman, she does cooking shows and is a trained medical provider. So someone who really understands the connection between nutrition and health and wellness,
Speaker 2:
Thank you for having me. And I used to write for the statesman I don’t anymore, but I dabble here and there. It’s got the street cred. You said huge, but she’s super skinny and very fast . She is tiny, which might be challenging for our patients. So believe me.
Speaker 1:
So, you know, it is very easy to talk to people and for them to accept on a superficial level, that what we put in our body can affect our health. Like people that’s easy for people to believe, but somehow it’s hard for people to believe that if they, what they’re putting in their body, that it can affect their body system. And so Shefali, why don’t you tell me what are some of the triggers that really inspire somebody to change the way they’re eating or their lifestyle?
Speaker 2:
Well, certainly in the medical world, a new diagnosis, you know, a new diagnosis is like a pain point. It’s a new pain point, especially if it’s a chronic illness. So to me, you know, if , if you don’t have a pain point or really just a pain point, then you’re going to have a really hard time being motivated and coached by anybody, including yourself to make those things .
Speaker 1:
Because transition points are really an opportunity for you to really re-examine what you’ve done. So, you know, smokers often don’t stop smoking until they get a bad illness. You know, people who are overweight often will wait until they have some kind of chronic illness, which is really a shame because sometimes you’ve waited too long. Okay .
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. I mean, another example is just from, in my prior experience with fatty liver patients, you know, until they’ve been told they have fatty liver or even cirrhosis is when they either first hear about alcohol reduction or they’ve heard all along, but that’s when they actually do .
Speaker 1:
And so it is a real struggle to get people, to make lifestyle changes when they’re not having a specific pain point, unless you’re particularly motivated that way. But, you know, as a medical professional, I have to give out pain points every day. I’ve got to tell people they have low testosterone. I’ve got to tell people that they have interstitial cystitis. And then of course, cancer diagnosis are a big part of our everyday here.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, bandaid medicine is, you know, it’s not what I want to call what we do in the medical field. I mean, we need this Western approach, this evidence based medicine. And we have a role of course, for this kind of medical care, but I’d like us to see in this country a better approach to chronic disease and chronic illness, which takes a lot of work. It’s a work on a provider and more work for the patient .
Speaker 1:
I’m a big believer in philosophy guiding practices. So if you were just to kind of generalize the nutritional approach to cancer diagnoses , and nobody here is talking about not doing traditional therapy, you know, if you have prostate cancer, take your doctor’s advice. But every single one of my patients, literally the second I diagnosed them, the first question they ask is what should I eat? Like it’s on the very forefront of their minds . So how would you explain kind of your philosophy or your approach to cancer nutrition? Okay.
Speaker 2:
So it sounds like a lot. Yeah. There’s a lot. There’s a lot there. And I, I, you know, you can generalize diets for the masses, but it would be hard. Everybody knows to eat clean and eat vegetables for the most part. If you look at all the diets out there, paleo vegetarian, vegan, Kito , I mean, most of them don’t disagree on vegetable.
Speaker 1:
Right, right. And clean foods. We’re really talking about things that are minimally processed, whole foods,
Speaker 2:
Food . So not like a broccoli chip, but just broccoli please, or you know, all those kinds of things out there. So the reason your patients are going to ask you first and foremost, what can I eat is because patients need to feel empowered. They’ve been given a diagnosis by somebody else it’s totally out of their control. This goes for everything, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, whatnot. So they are going to ask their doctor because who else can they ask ? They don’t, you don’t go to a nutritionist as a, for a well-check you go to your doctor. So they’re going to ask you. And so luckily now medical stools, mega medical stools. I mean , that’s all right . We have medical stools around the clinic thinking GI . Um, luckily now, you know, incorporate culinary , uh, cooking classes, culinary medicine, into their programs, more and more. But certainly when you and I went, when I went to PA school, when you went to med school, nutrition was like two hours of your education, nothing. So
Speaker 1:
A lot of reasons for it, you know, you know how doctors are paid, what we know, and then how much can we really try to turn the patient’s viewpoint? So, you know, when somebody comes to me with an enlarged prostate, I know that I can recommend 10 times out of 10 prostate surgery is going to help you be better. And I’m going to feel very confident that’s going to work, but I’m not as confident that if I send somebody for weight loss counseling that they’re going to follow through. And I think it’s people being disappointed with our patients follow through that, discourages us to keep going, but that’s never been my philosophy. I’m always a big fan of the one person that decides to go through the therapy. And when it comes to cancer, eating, a lot of them are very motivated to lose weight prior to surgery, but it’s the maintenance of some kind of lifestyle. And if it’s too drastic, they, a lot of people can’t stick with it. So maybe site like some guiding principles that are, that people can easily kind of think about when they approach a cancer diet.
Speaker 2:
Sure. So I think the first thing I would say, you can say this the moment you see them in the offices start eating cruciferous vegetables every single day. That’s a big word. Yes. So they’re a part of the brassica family and they just all cruciferous vegetables. So this is kale, broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy, a rugala , I’m missing a big one here, couple other ones in that class. If you can eat that every day, a good handful or two servings, just put that we should all be doing this. This is preventative anti-cancer therapy truly. So I would suggest, you know, just tell your patients start, you want to , you want to do something you want, you want some power empowerment. Do you want to take charge and put me in control a little bit. Start eating blueberries and broccoli every single day. Huh ? Can you make me a salad ? Blueberries , blueberries broccoli. Well, there you go. And so that’s another thought of, you know, where I love to think about it .
Speaker 1:
It’s healthy for you. I really can’t tell you .
Speaker 2:
That’s the one I was thinking of guys hate Brussels browser . I love Brussels sprouts . Have you had them at
Speaker 1:
Just , it just takes me back to my childhood.
Speaker 2:
And the idea is that you’re reducing inflammation. So antiinflammatory diet is huge.
Speaker 1:
And I think that that is, you know, if I had to really encapsulate what our approach is to so many disease processes, it’s this idea that inflammation is a central core component of many things, cancer, heart disease, high cholesterol weight. And by reducing the inflammatory response in our body, I think that we can reduce rashes, irritable, bowel, cancer, diagnosis, and progression. And so I I’m really proud of the approach that , that we’re taking together when it comes to nutrition. And I think that if you’re out there and you’ve been diagnosed with a cancer, whether it be prostate cancer, kidney cancer, or another type of cancer, and you haven’t been given guidance on what to put in your body because you know what we put on our body has to have some impact and what’s going on with us in terms of our health. Even if it’s cancer, it’s not just always just bad luck, right? And so if you’ve, if you’ve been diagnosed and you want some guidance, we would highly encourage you to come in and visit with us. You don’t have to have a urologic condition per se, to be able to visit which visit with Shefali or, or a team. And she can see you directly. She’s a physician assistant. She has incredible medical training. [inaudible] worked in GI medicine, and now
Speaker 3:
We’re happy to have her here. Super excited. Thank you for joining out of pain . Well, if we had time, they would call us at 5.22384762 and email at [inaudible] dot com. The Armour men’s health hour. We’ll be right back. If you have questions for dr. Mystery, email him at Armour men’s health@gmail.com